Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Dragonsbrethren

PSX Doom: The Lost Levels - New Pre-Beta Available courtesy of Salahmander2

Recommended Posts

"The Tower back into Black?" I think I get you. The question is, would it actually be a good idea in terms of framerate? Might be better to settle for "A Series of Black Forts." :)

And I'm not even sure how to use UDMF's texture offsets, so you needn't worry about that. I understand vanilla and have a general idea of how Boom works, but I'm mostly playing UDMF by ear, looking at existing maps for examples of how to make things function. But most of the editing for these maps is just changing sector color/brightness values and some textures, so that shouldn't be hard.

And you can send your edit of my version of Mephisto back to me if you'd like. But honestly, I'm okay with any alterations you'd make, so I doubt I'd change anything. Did you update DeXiaZ's version of LOST17 yet? I could do some fixes for that if you'd like.

Share this post


Link to post

I don't think it would be too bad, I could always test my edits in the unmodified PC map with low cycles first. I'm not going to do anything too crazy, it's still going to be shorter than the PC version. Again I like the ~300 height aesthetic a lot of PSX maps use, even if it was capable of doing 512.

As for UDMF offsets, strangely your conversion was using them. Maybe the converter is to blame then. No big deal as long as it doesn't do anything that isn't possible in vanilla.

I haven't updated DeXiaZ's version of LOST17 yet, so you can work on that if you want.

Share this post


Link to post
Dragonsbrethren said:

As for UDMF offsets, strangely your conversion was using them. Maybe the converter is to blame then.

Nope, the blame is squarely at GZDoom Builder's feet for this one. Using auto-align for x/y offsets will automatically cause it to use UDMF's independent offsets for Upper/Middle/Lower in order to align everything as precisely as possible. A bit of a bastard really if you're trying to avoid it.

There might be a setting to stop this behaviour, but I haven't checked; I'm still using standard Doom Builder for this project and haven't really had time to work out and learn every aspect of GZDB just yet.

Share this post


Link to post

That's odd. I don't tend to use auto-align, since it sometimes destroys offsets of walls you weren't even aware had been selected. Maybe I pressed it by accident.

Anyway, I'll get onto DeXiaZ's LOST17 as soon as possible. Just don't expect me to be quite as quick and efficient as Salahmander2 was. :)

Share this post


Link to post

Huh. Fixing up DeXiaZ's version of Mephisto now, and it turns out *I* made a few mistakes with my playtesting. Glad I caught myself in time, before I added new problems!

Share this post


Link to post

Has anyone figured out a way to check if this maps would really run on a PlayStation? That would be absolutely fascinating. I'm sure I and all the other PSX fanboys would want to spend hours tinkering with the maps to see what works and what doesn't.

Also, did anyone get around to converting the Arch-Vile to PSX format? There was talk of doing it in the early posts. Has anyone tracked down those PSX Arch-Vile sound effects?

Share this post


Link to post
MajorRawne said:

Has anyone figured out a way to check if this maps would really run on a PlayStation? That would be absolutely fascinating. I'm sure I and all the other PSX fanboys would want to spend hours tinkering with the maps to see what works and what doesn't.

Also, did anyone get around to converting the Arch-Vile to PSX format? There was talk of doing it in the early posts. Has anyone tracked down those PSX Arch-Vile sound effects?


Closest we have to checking is through DOSBox if the map lags or not, it seems to work well. As for the Archy, no such luck on the sounds sadly.

Share this post


Link to post

We need to send Aubrey Hodges an email, threatening him with reprisal if he doesn't send us the sound.

"Commencing tonight at 3am, then at a random time each night thereafter, members of the Doomworld forum will phone your home number and make farting noises into the receiver. This will continue until you flee the country or send us the Arch Vile sound effects. Your sincerely, (random name eg Maes)"

Share this post


Link to post

Because harassment is the secret to making friends and influencing people.

Share this post


Link to post

Has anyone contacted him about the sounds since his time on DW? Or about the usage of his unused tracks in mods for that matter. You know, official word and all.

Share this post


Link to post

Good point. Now he's commercially released the PSX soundtrack, are we committing some kind of copyright offence? As for the unreleased tracks, we can always ask him, but since they didn't come with the original game and are only available by purchasing them, I'm guessing we can't use them.

Share this post


Link to post

Right, time for some gameplay feedback.

In "Black Tower", I left the central tower (the Black Tower of the title) through the door in the right-hand wall. This took me to a ledge looking across a lake of brown slime. I jumped into the slime, got the rad suit and the guns, ran around killing everything, then had to return to the black tower as I could not proceed through a barred gate. Normal gameplay, up until I got back into the Black Tower and found a frozen Cacodemon who had appeared from nowhere. It was just sitting there by the central pillar, it might have been stuck, but when I ran right up to it, it didn't attempt to bite me. The Caco might have followed me from another area, but I am sure I killed them all, so I don't know where this one came from.

The other feedback for this map is not exactly a "bug" report, but the traps seem excessively shitty for a PSX map: there are two Baron traps that you would almost certainly not see on the Playstation. One of them is similar to the Imp trap in "The Factory", where you beam into a cramped space with an Imp on four sides of you, which is almost instant death if you aren't expecting it. Replicating this with Barons... well, it's just not cricket. The second Baron trap locks you into a cramped room as bars raise or lower behind you while a Baron walks straight through a door you just opened.

I had 145% health and about 50% armour when I hit the first Baron trap. Not sure how much I lost, it might have been about half my health. The second trap killed me.

While this is presumably how the PC version played, remember this is not the PC version. PSX players couldn't save their games so the difficulty level was different. I think this is why the Plutonia Experiment didn't make the cut, it would have simply pissed players off having to restart the map after every death.

As for "Dis", I can't find it again as I don't know the map number, but there is a version of it that exceeds the monster limit by 3 points due to a Cacodemon (3pts) appearing alongside Barons (4pts) and the Mastermind (22pts). That version is on Youtube, maybe it's been modified since then.

Share this post


Link to post
MajorRawne said:

As for "Dis", I can't find it again as I don't know the map number, but there is a version of it that exceeds the monster limit by 3 points due to a Cacodemon (3pts) appearing alongside Barons (4pts) and the Mastermind (22pts). That version is on Youtube, maybe it's been modified since then.


Dis has been modified since, it's had quite an interesting change.

Share this post


Link to post

Don't get me wrong, it's a good map where nearly everything about it seems to just "work", I genuinely think Williams would have nerfed the traps though. They seemed to fix some of the monster deployment that would be harsh on the player. I think only The Catacombs and The Pit had shitty Chaingunner death traps, for example.

Share this post


Link to post

Update re Black Tower: when you get trapped in the small area where the Baron comes through a door in the wall, I'd change it to a Knight or Nightmare Spectre, but that might just be me being a pussy. Removing the four-Baron trap with the BFG would go against the spirit of this project, I'm just not sure that traps like this (and as I've said before, the Chaingunner spam from Plutonia) keeps to the spirit of PSX gameplay. This is of course just my opinion, you've done an excellent job with this map.

NME: Thoroughly enjoyed this one; just like Black Tower it felt like it should have been on a second disc for PSX Final Doom. There really was no excuse for cutting some of these maps. Presumably time and the desire to milk money from Doom fans by delivering half the original game's content are to blame. Good gameplay, cannot imagine the original would be better. EDIT: The use of a Cyberdemon seems excessive in the original version of this map. Your version avoids this.

Titan Manor: Never liked this one, way too much farting about wondering where to go, so IMO it is one of the worst-playing Doom maps. However, it looks absolutely sensational, easily one of the more beautiful maps and a terrific conversion, a great deal better looking than the original Master Levels map which kept me playing longer than I would have played the original. I played this map last week so cannot remember the music, but Hangar (map 01) or Toxin Refinery (map 03) are beautiful tracks which would have suited this down to the ground.

Hanger: Hmm, not too sure on the gameplay here. The first part of the map rocks, but when you're overlooking the courtyard, the barrels seem to be almost impossible to hit and you've only got a pistol or shotgun at this point. The outside is far too dark and I didn't notice the yellow door - I originally thought you'd placed a yellow key instead of the red. This isn't my call of course, but I'd move the barrels slightly so the player can at least see more than one pixel of them, and I'd lighten the outdoors area. See my comments on lighting below. If I'd known where the yellow door was, I'd have enjoyed it much more, it's got that classic 1990s feel of an original Doom techbase. Also this isn't your fault, but the player has to shotgun his way through a lot of shit, a better weapon should have been given earlier, but that's how it was so you probably shouldn't change it.

Power Control: There is a moonless midnight; there is the blackness of a whore's heart; there is the lightless, stygian depths wherein the blind god Azatoth writhes to the sound of daemon flutes; then there's Power Control. Or Power Cut, as I call it, considering there's not even one fething light on in the entire place. This is way too dark and I was stumbling into monsters getting my balls bitten off by Nightmare Spectres. The layout seemed more confusing because I just couldn't see a thing. PLEASE brighten this up a bit, not a single PSX map had the player banging into walls due to low ambient lighting.

Excessively dark sectors
If people are complaining about this then it seems counter-productive to deliberately keep sectors at the PSX brightness. At the end of the day, GZDoom is so dark that the Lost Levels videos on Youtube are nearly unwatchable; is this what should be delivered to players? I would say common sense should prevail here, if people are having to bleach their screen the maps should have brightness levels raised slightly. This issue doesn't happen on every map but it is very annoying.

I'll feed back on the other maps as I play them.

Share this post


Link to post

More thoughts, for what they're worth.

The frame rate is too high. Not sure you can do anything about this, and some may think it excessively picky, but I've been playing Final Doom on my Android phone and while the Doom frame rate is better than I remember, much smoother and less jerky, gameplay on the PSX had a slightly slower, more deliberate feel. The player seemed to have more momentum and moved with a sense of purpose because of it. I've found that playing with a modern PC, using a mouse, the controls are a bit more "floaty" and the player can move more quickly.

Is there any way to recreate the gritty look of the PSX? GZDoom smooths the graphics (I believe this is called bump-mapping?) and while the PSX TC looks fantastic, it is a bit like watching a period drama where the characters all have white teeth and clean, bright clothes: easy on the eye, but not the way it was.

EDIT: I must point out these are just enquiries/suggestions and don't indicate a criticism of the project or the people behind it.

Share this post


Link to post
MajorRawne said:

The frame rate is too high.

cl_capfps 1
You're not getting any less than 35fps though.


Is there any way to recreate the gritty look of the PSX?

Options > Advanced > Display Options > OpenGL Options > Texture Options:
Turn all filters off.

Then go back to Preferences:
Turn off Smooth Sprite Edges. Play around with the Sector Light/Fog Mode options if required too.

Outside of using the original game's renderer (complete with shoddy texture mapping), that's as close as you're going to get.

Share this post


Link to post

Ragnor - Yeah lol, I'm quite annoying like that :)

Baron - thank you for all that, I'll do that now.

I'm writing level by level feedback just offering suggestions eg about music, gameplay nits that I'm not always sure if they were there on the PC version, any glaring issues like HOMs etc, but so far it's looking very, very good... apart from some super-dark areas in certain maps.

Share this post


Link to post

The following playthroughs, and those that will follow, are NOT exhaustive bug guides. This is the perspective of a die-hard PSX Doomer with an eye for continuity who simply played the maps through on Ultra Violence. I am aware that some maps have gameplay that do not suit my specific tastes and any complaints about the maps (Ugh, the Chasm...) are complaints about the gameplay of the original map, NOT a criticism of this TC or the people who have worked tirelessly to see it done.

Let's go:

Lost01: Forsaken Keep
Music played during the map: Hangar

Faithful conversion which is fun to play. Not sure why this map was cut from the PSX. The music for map 13 (Command Centre) would suit this map better. The music sounds like the searing sun, which suits the flaming sky background, and it's also a hellish-themed track.

--

Lost02: Slough of Despair
Music played during the map: Plant

Grimmer and moodier than the original, but seems extremely short of ammo. The music does seem to suit the map. I had to leg it for the exit with two Cacodemons, a Pain Elemental and nearly a dozen Lost Souls on my arse, with a couple of Demons and Imps also still loose in the level. There was no way for me to kill them without resorting to the fist unless I missed an ammo cache or two.

--

Lost03: Dis
Music played during the map: Phobos Anomaly

This map got a lot of good feedback during its creation. The music suits the map perfectly. "Dis" has always seemed like a poor man's "Redemption Denied" and it plays in a similar manner except with less ammo and equipment and fewer Barons. However, your makeover of the map is certainly an attention-getter and it exemplifies the importance of this project. The first corridor looks fantastic and although some of the visual tricks might have been beyond the Williams mappers of the time, this isn't "Doom the way Williams did". The exit room also looks good and (because I read your posts) I noticed the effort you'd gone to in order to put pentagrams over the doors in the Baron den. Dis is the first Lost Level which makes you sit up and realise shit's getting serious.

--

Lost04: They Will Repent
Music played during the map: Phobos Lab

An extremely good reproduction which most definitely feels like it belongs in the early stages of PSX Doom, around Command Centre (map 13) for its gameplay style or more likely Limbo (map 22) for its theme of being in Hell. This map plays really well and there are no criticisms against it; I'd have liked this instead of Limbo as it's not as easy to get turned around when trying to progress.

--

Lost05: Against Thee Wickedly
Music played during the map: Phobos Lab

I have never been keen on this map and did not regret its deletion from PSX Doom. That said, you create an excellent atmosphere and I like the coloured sectors at the beginning which match the sky. If you step out from the starting alcove and look back, one of the wall textures rises up into the sky. This is the second map in a row which uses the Phobos Lab music. The Twilight Descends or Hell Beneath maps might suit a castle in hell. You use about 24 points of the 26 total for monster use and manage, in spite of the Cyberdemon using half your total, to create good variety.

--

Lost06: And Hell Followed
Music played during the map: Central Processing

While I enjoyed this map and found you used a good variety of monsters, there are a couple of problems. One, the Baron trap is really easy to avoid as you have to shoot while in the Baron room to activate them - something nobody is going to do, since it's obvious from the look of the room that there is going to be a trap. You can just run around the bars, stand in the doorway, fire your pistol once (or your BFG) and simply blast them as they appear. Second, this is the first Lost Level with rooms that are dark enough to cause annoyance. Generally though, this map offers variety of gameplay with good atmosphere. The music really suits this map.

Share this post


Link to post

Lost07: Downtown
Music played during the map: Computer Station
This is one of the maps I wasn't looking forward to as I simply don't like the way it plays. Your choice of music sets a creepy, fast-paced tone for the map, which suits it since there are rapid-firing Arachnotrons and Revenants with hunter-killer missiles, so you'll always be on the move. The more limited texture choices allowed on the PSX actually suits this map better. Some city maps have buildings with all kinds of textures, which is true to life but doesn't look cohesive in a game. You pull it off here; one of the benefits of a limited texture set.

--

Lost08: Industrial Zone
Music played during the map: Phobos Anomaly
This is the first map I played using Baronofstuff's settings to replicate the PSX feel. My word, what a difference. I noticed that the capped framerate struggled a bit, nothing serious, but this map might have been stretching the PSX's capability as there's a large outdoor area with lots of monsters. The music is one of my favourite tracks and it gives an eerie, solemn feel of an abandoned city that was once full of life and sound. I actually gibbed a handgunner with a chaingun in this map - that's the first time this has ever happened since I started playing Doom in 1994/95. Industrial Zone, again, is not one of my favourite maps, but at least it is brightly lit throughout. The Hell Knight room and exit to the Castle look really good.

--

** Lost66: The Castle [secret map from Industrial Zone]
Music played during the map: Computer Station
First off, while the PSX music is amazing, by this point anyone who's playing the maps through in order has heard the same tracks a number of times and many of the tracks have not been heard at all. With that said, this is actually a PSX TC exclusive map - thank God they didn't just re-texture Wolfenstein, a level which few PSX players will have wished for back in the day. This map looks fantastic - a visual orgasm, really showcasing how much better the PSX port could look. It does go into more detail than any original map I've seen, so there is no way to know if the limited PSX hardware could have coped with it, but it would be worth some slowdown. The map suffers from seizure-inducing light flashes throughout. These seemed quite popular with the original mappers, but it's not a feature I miss in modern maps. It also shows how far modern mappers have come when it comes to texturing a map; this wasn't exactly id Software's strong point. I wasn't in love with the pits with the barrels - bear in mind PSX players couldn't save their games, which used to really feth me off at the end of Barrels O'Fun. The coloured lighting is used well. What a fantastic-looking map. Unfortunately, this map exceeds the available monster allocation by quite some distance - it totals nearly 40 points or out of 26 available. You'd need to bin off the Mancubi and Barons, replacing them with Knights instead (Williams must have thanked their lucky stars for the Hell Knight). I gibbed TWO handgunners with a chaingun and one with a super shotgun. Why does this only happen in the PSX TC?

--

Lost09: Gotcha!
Music played during the map: Deimos Anomaly
This is the first appearance of one of Aubrey Hodges' most fearsome music tracks. I really do not like this map at all, there is little worse in Doom than a confusing map with lots of damaging lava, so I just watched it on Youtube when I had a spare minute. The map is a lot more frightening than the original and certainly looks the part. A pity that this map repels me, but it is probably popular with Doom veterans.

--

Lost10: The Chasm
Music played during the map: Containment Area
AAAAAHHH!! AAAAAHHHH!! It's the Chasm! Oh please God AAAAAAHHHH! Well it's The Chasm, the marmite map, which has always exemplified to me the reason why some maps were chosen, others got chucked. It certainly looks better than the original but unfortunately it still plays the same. Apologies for this biased review.

--

Lost11: The Spirit World
Music played during the map: Pandemonium
We come at last to the remaining dreaded Doom 2 maps: The Spirit World and The Living End. Why do I dread them? Well all I remember about Spirit World is an intensely difficult pistol-start and trying to find the red key. Fortunately, the makeover and my determination to finally beat this ghost from the past resulted in a massacre. The different monsters are definitely easier to get through, rendering three or four invulnerabilities and two megaspheres trite. As there are no Masterminds we get extra Arachnotrons instead, but they can't really hit you from where they are unless they stand well back. They get in each others' way too much for this to be a problem. The neutered, resource-intensive Revenant is sacrificed too, not that he makes much difference in a map. The music suits it, good to hear a different, muted choice.

--

Lost12: The Living End
Music played during the map: Deimos Lab
The first appearance of an under-rated music track, one that sounds like an empty, echoing city. I didn't like the original map - too much fething about figuring out where to go, with the requisite over-used Cyberdemon. Honestly, by the time players of the PC version got to the end of Doom 2, they must have been sick of the sight of them. Yet again, the PSX makeover and my new determination to finally vanquish this ghost contributed to the fun: I enjoyed this map considerably, even if the ammo situation was a bit screwed up at times. I played this map several weeks ago but I think it was too short on shotgun shells. I finally see what PC players have always seen: this is a tense, well-designed map which is good to play, given a definite edge by the atmosphere of the PSX TC, with no annoying Arch-Vile.

Share this post


Link to post
MajorRawne said:

I gibbed TWO handgunners with a chaingun and one with a super shotgun. Why does this only happen in the PSX TC?

The gib health value is halved in the TC, because some players insisted it happened in the real PSX version. I've never seen it happen myself, either. Personally, I'm thinking this might be one of those false memories...

Quasar recently brought this up to me, too. I'm not going to believe this is the right behavior until someone shows video of it happening.

Thanks for all of this feedback, especially on the music. (It's kind of funny how just lazily going down the list of tracks seems to have worked out well in the end.)

Share this post


Link to post

Speaking of music, I used the IDMUS cheat to change the track that is currently in Odyssey of Noises to use the track with the babies crying (which was used by default in PSX Final Doom's Ballistyx). Sorry, I don't know the title of the track. Either way, I found this to be a much better fit with the level and its title.

Share this post


Link to post

I don't think I ever gibbed an enemy with the shotgun or chaingun, and I played the shit out of that game for years along with my brother and our friends. Gibbing someone in that manner would have had us buzzing.

The player character also gets gibbed a lot on the PSX, but this only happens when a Cyberdemon rocket smacks you in the face, or when the player is killed by a heavy weapon (BFG or rocket launcher) in co-op or deathmatch, or when a door/lift/ceiling crushes your corpse. I can categorically state that over thousands of frags and hundreds of hours' gameplay, I have never seen or heard of a player being gibbed by the shotgun or chaingun in PSX Doom.

What they're probably remembering is how monsters gib easily to explosions. This is definitely easier to do on the PSX than the PC. I tend to find something nagging me when using the rocket launcher on the PC and I think it's how the monsters don't explode all the time.

I *DO* think I have gibbed handgunners with the plasma rifle but cannot guarantee it. This has definitely never happened to a player character in deathmatch or co-op. (Otherwise, people would get gibbed by Arachnotrons.)

In this TC, it seems that monsters gib in some maps and not in others.

Finally, is the Knight/Baron behaviour changed to fight each other? Again, this is something I have never seen on the PSX but HAVE seen in the TC.

Share this post


Link to post
MajorRawne said:

I *DO* think I have gibbed handgunners with the plasma rifle

This happens in the original PC version as well.

MajorRawne said:

Finally, is the Knight/Baron behaviour changed to fight each other? Again, this is something I have never seen on the PSX but HAVE seen in the TC.

It is possible in Doom 64.

Most of the game logic in the Jaguar/PSX/N64 ports of Doom come from Doom 1.2, in which Hell knights did not exist. When Carmack & co. added the Doom II monsters, they put in a special infighting exception for the knight and baron, but this was something easily overlooked when porting back Doom II content to PSX Doom... And since this exception is missing from Doom 64, which is based on the PSX Doom codebase, then it is presumably missing in PSX Doom as well (rather than deliberately removed).

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×